For five months in 2007 and 2008, a masked man with a gun and blue surgical gloves terrorized residents and travelers of the Columbia River Gorge.

Robber has record in California

He robbed a pair of college students as they gazed up at the stars at Crown Point. After taking their cell phones, cash and car keys, they ran two miles to the nearest home to call police.

He ordered a pregnant woman and her two children to the floor of a restaurant -- the stress causing her to go into contractions. Her children, ages 9 and 11, were so frightened they wouldn't get up off the floor until police arrived and coaxed them to their feet.

Then the robber started sexually assaulting teenage girls who had parked at scenic points along the gorge with their boyfriends.

In a series of pleadings this week and last, Rigoberto Reyes Maldonado has agreed to serve more than 27 years in prison for his crimes, which targeted 17 people in seven separate holdups. The 34-year-old has pleaded guilty and no contest in Multnomah and Hood River counties to counts of first-degree robbery, first-degree sodomy and first-degree unlawful sexual penetration. He's agreed to plead to two more counts of robberies in Wasco County at a date that hasn't yet been set.

Maldonado's crimes

Nov. 3, 2007: Robbed two college students at Crown Point.

Dec. 9, 2007: Robbed the Charburger restaurant on the outskirts of Hood River. Five victims.

Dec. 15, 2007: Robbed two men at the Mitchell Point Overlook near Hood River.

Dec. 16, 2007: Allegedly robbed a man and a woman at Kelly Viewpoint in The Dalles. He's agreed to plead to this crime.

March 22, 2008: Allegedly robbed two men at Kelly Viewpoint. He's agreed to plead to this crime.

April 18, 2008: Robbed a high school couple, then forced the girl to perform oral sex.

Maldonado's crime spree caused residents from Troutdale to The Dalles to take precautions. At Hood River Valley High School, staff warned students about visiting rest stops and secluded areas.

"He created a good deal of apprehension in the communities in the gorge," said Hood River County District Attorney John Sewell.

Authorities say Maldonado was able to rob again and again because he had experience. He'd served time in prison in California in the 1990s. A few weeks after getting out in 1997, he was wanted in two other robberies in that state, but managed to evade police for more than a decade.

Maldonado struck at night, covered his face, wore gloves, carried a gun and parked his getaway car where his victims could see it. And after he stole victims' ATM cards and forced them to reveal their PIN numbers, he frequented an ATM outside of a Hood River store that didn't have a surveillance camera.

During his robberies, he insisted victims look away -- like on Dec. 9, 2007, when he ordered two children and three employees, including the woman who was six months pregnant, face-down to the floor of the Charburger restaurant on the outskirts of Hood River. Maldonado struck at closing time, just after the place had cleared of customers.

Authorities grew more concerned after the robber sexually assaulted a teenage girl at Women's Forum park on Jan. 13, 2008. Multnomah County senior prosecutor Charles Sparks said Maldonado used a gun to force his way into a parked car. He ordered a teenage boy to drive toward Larch Mountain as he sexually assaulted the girl in the back seat. When he was finished, he ordered the boy to stop, got out, threw the keys into the dark and hopped off in a waiting car.

Police have not arrested the accomplice who drove the get-away car.

Three months later, Maldonado also sexually abused a 17-year-old girl who was with her boyfriend at a park next to Bridge of the Gods near Cascade Locks. Maldonado robbed them, then ordered the boyfriend to run up a hill at gunpoint and forced the girl to perform oral sex on him. Six days later, police searched Maldonado's Carson, Wash., home and found a pair of his underpants that were tested for DNA and found to have the girl's saliva on them.

"It was frankly a long shot," Sparks said. "You have to get lucky to get this evidence."

Sewell said investigators had suspected Maldonado of the crimes, after Multnomah County Sheriff's Detective Jose Torres pulled a license plate number from a surveillance video at Crown Point five months earlier. The video was shot several minutes before the college students were robbed as they gazed at the stars, but evidence that Maldonado's car was in the area wasn't enough to get a search warrant, Sewell said.

Over time, investigators used additional evidence, including descriptions from new victims, to help convince a judge to issue a warrant, Sewell said.

In a search of Maldonado's home and car, authorities found blue surgical gloves and a 9 mm gun hidden inside the wall of his kitchen. But Sewell said the DNA evidence in Maldonado's underpants made all the difference in the case.